


I've had dreams of you (in places I'd not seen before)

by WallyWasTaken



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Car Accidents, Character Study, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Modern AU, Requited Unrequited Love, no Julian is not dead, you are very much up to interpret how this ends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:35:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22150420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WallyWasTaken/pseuds/WallyWasTaken
Summary: Babe Heffron wakes up with a massive headache and no fucking clue where he is.
Relationships: Babe Heffron/Eugene Roe
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31





	I've had dreams of you (in places I'd not seen before)

**Author's Note:**

> This is of no offense or affiliation with the real men of Easy Co. nor the actors that portrayed them.

When Babe jolts awake, it is dark.

Or - _maybe_ it is. Everything feels light and fuzzy, and he’s got a pounding headache that rivaled some of his worst hangovers. God, how much had he drank? His face is pressed against something, and all he could think was that he was in bed, with a massive hangover, and maybe if he was lucky he’d grabbed Tylenol the night before, and if he reached over it’d be on his nightstand. But his arms won’t move and there’s this loud blaring sound, and it feels like mallets are pounding on his skull like a drum, and the creaking sound of something compressing and hissing doesn’t help his cause much, either.

When he forced his eyes open, he had to blink away the bleary film of tiredness that seemed to cling to them, or whatever it was. It _was_ dark; save for a small blinky light in the corner of his eye. His head was spinning, and he swore he could hear violins. He managed a dopey grin, because he always did think learning an instrument would be pretty cool. Violins seemed to be on an impossible level, though - the one thing that always seemed too hard to play. Like the piano. He played the saxophone as a kid.

But the blaring sound is so _loud,_ and there are a million voices shouting at him to respond, and he just groans. His head is pounding, and he’s even more confused when he takes in his surroundings, because he most certainly isn’t lying in bed. His head is slumped against something on his left, and in front of him is a bunch of broken glass, which only confuses him more, and he’s _tired._ Babe’s eyes start drooping closed, and he’s perfectly content to just fall back asleep and not have to make sense of this whole jumbled mess.

He goes to say _Shh!_ When he hears a particularly loud bang of metal that almost sounds like a pop because it makes his head pulse and his ears ring, but he isn’t really sure if the noise comes out. He’s sort of splayed out in his seat, somewhere in-between sitting and slouching. He rolls his head away, and when he looks up, blinking slowly, he’s surprised to find he can’t see any stars. There’s a big gaping hole in the - ceiling? - above him, and beyond that are branches of a tree blocking a lot of his view of the cloudy sky.

  
  


_“Babe?! Can you hear me? Are you injured? Respond if you can hear -”_

  
  


Babe’s tongue feels heavy in his mouth, and his throat is dry, dry, dry. A trickle of something shoots up his spine, and it feels like heaven because suddenly everything feels numb, with sharper edges. It feels like as shot; Babe’s only ever gotten shots in his arms, and they aren’t really supposed to be good. (Well. At the moment.) He’d gotten his flu shot in November, and he wheezes softly at the memory because his mouth feels weird, and he doesn’t know how to laugh.

He’s able to recognize a bit more now that things seem to spin a bit less - like the wheel in front of him which he can barely see because of the big marshmallow that covers it, and _oh,_ that’s why he can’t move his arms, he’s wearing a seat belt. His left arm won’t budge when he tries to move it, though, so he has to resort to using his right even though his hand is shaking, and he can barely move his fingers, so grasping around to find the button to release it proves difficult.

  
  


_“For the love of - Give me that -_ Heffron?”

And then he stops, lazily turning to look at the glowing light on the passenger side, thrown onto the floor and cracked, because that’s a voice he can _recognize._ “Jeen?” He slurs, squinting at the light.

“That’s me, I’m right here,” Gene replies, but that blaring sound is still ever-present on his end and all Babe can really do is groan in embarrassment, because of course Gene is here for this. 

He still can’t really move, and he’s starting to feel a little uncomfortable the way he’s splayed out so his attention drifts back to the seat belt. It’s not as hard, this time, because now at least he’s found the switch thingy to get it to release. Or maybe he has; half his hand is numb. He mistakes his jacket for it a few times, but eventually he manages to hit the button with shaky fingers, and it _releases_ and it would be freeing if it wasn’t now stuck on his left arm.

“Hey - stay with me Babe, listen to my voice,” Gene says, and he sounds rushed. _I am, I am,_ he thinks, and he can’t hear violins anymore, and he actually hasn’t heard them in a while, and he doesn’t know when they stopped, why he didn’t notice -

“I’m right here, I’m right here,” Eugene says softly, quick and comforting. And then, “Are you hurt?”

Babe jolts when he feels a prickle of cold on his head. When he looks up, there’s snow falling. The flakes are getting gradually bigger, and he shivers. He’s still processing the question in his head, rolling it around until he finally manages to get an answer through his mouth. “D’nno,” he says.

“That’s okay, it’s okay,” He says. _“Where the fuck is the fire department -”_

  
  


It occurs to him that Eugene is probably working. The blaring sound would make a lot of sense, in that context. Babe hates to bother him when he’s working; he know’s Gene loves his job. (Not entirely - he confesses to him one night how much he hated seeing blood when he started it, how used he got to the numbing reserve of people nearly dying.) This is what makes it harder, he thinks, because he’s always been too busy for a guy like Babe. He’d like to say his heart aches, but it kind actually _hurts,_ and the snow is falling down on his hands, and when he breathes it’s like smoke.

“M’sorry,” he mumbles. 

“Nothin’ to be sorry for,” Eugene says. “Got people on the way, you’ll be alright.”

And Babe just groans in exasperation, wants to say _no no no, that’s not what I meant,_ thinks of the bags under Gene’s eyes all the time and the small flinch whenever someone says ‘Doc’ when they call him over, of how badly he just wants to let him rest, hide him from the world, and how awful he is at just _explaining_ it. The feeling. Or whatever it is - his head is still kind of spinning, and he has to close his eyes.

When he opens them again, it occurs to him he’s shaking, though he doesn’t feel cold. And he’s just so tired, because he feels like he’s having the biggest hangover of his life, and he doesn’t even know where he is because barely anything looks familiar in the dark, and if it weren’t for the broken light that is currently Gene Roe on the ground and the one weird light beaming in front of him, beyond the broken glass, he isn’t sure he’d be able to see anything at all. While the blaring sound is temporarily gone, the hissing of metal is still present, and it’s sound is everywhere, and he doesn’t really get it.

“Edward? What’s that sound?” he asks, and he sounds increasingly more frantic as time seems to tick on. If it is. What time is it, anyway? And Babe’s throat is so dry it hurts, so all he can really do is cough, and suddenly there’s red running from his forehead to sputter down his chin, and he kinda thinks its jelly, but he doesn’t really remember eating anything and it doesn’t feel like it when he touches it. He huffs belatedly in response, _because how the hell would I know, Gene, I don’t even know where the hell I am._

“Never mind, It’s alright,” And it sounds like he’s shuffling around on the other end of the call, and Babe hears the click of a door sliding closed. “Don’t worry about it.”

And he just furrows his eyebrows, because he wasn’t worried, but now he’s a little concerned he should be. And there’s more red that gets on his lips, and it tastes awful which makes him cough just to get it out, which _hurts_ like nothing else. So yeah, he’s kinda panicking a bit now, thanks Gene. God love him. _God, he loves him._

_“Shit -_ You’re okay, you’re okay,” Eugene soothes. “Just breathe with me. Think you can do that? Just like yesterday, Babe, nice and easy.”

  
  


But Babe doesn’t remember yesterday, doesn’t remember having to do this before. But Eugene breathes, so he breathes with him, although it’s ridiculously hard because his breaths just keep coming out frantically fast, and it’s difficult to stop. The golden numb feeling that seemed to blanket everything almost evaporates with how quick it’s gone, and he nearly shouts with how quickly the goddamn pain sets in. Maybe he actually does; all he knows he makes some sound, and he doesn’t really have the mind to be embarrassed about it.

It’s almost as if everything slides into place once the haziness disappears and the pain settles in. What once was blocking his memory is gone, now, and he’s left to revel in absolute horror of the familiarity, of how he got here, the reason _why_ he’s here. Because someone switched shifts and Gene ended up with the night shift, and his car is still in the shop because his coolant is leaking, and he doesn’t have a ride home, and they haven’t really been talking lately because Babe’s a goddamn _coward_ and god, he was just going to tell him he loved him even if it was four in the morning. But then there’s headlight’s on the wrong side of the road, and it’s fast, and it doesn’t matter how much he slows down like they tell him to because it’s so _fast,_ and he has to swerve at some point anyway, and they take out his headlight before he’s heading into the trees, and all he can think is _there’s snow on the ground_ and for the _love of god gene please don’t hang up if I can’t say hello,_ because the dial tone is still ringing, and then - and then he’s here.

And his head is bleeding, and his left arm is pinned in between the seat and his door, and when he looks down there's a tree branch sticking out of his chest.

“No, no no no,” Babe gasps, “Gene -”

“Heffron, stay with me,” he says, and if he were here right now Babe can imagine he’d be grasping at him with his hands, frantically checking him all over for what’s the most wrong, though it’d probably be obvious. “Deep breaths, remember? They’re almost there.”

And he’s confused, and he just whines because _what do you mean ‘they’re,’ why isn’t it you, why can’t you be here_ and it’s a sin to think at all because he’s so incredibly regretful. And there’s _red_ and it’s everywhere, and he doesn’t have half the brain to really know exactly what it is, at this point, but with every bone in his body he at least knows it’s wrong _._ He’s gasping for air, and when he looks up the hole in the ceiling is just the sunroof, and it’s snowing.

  
  


The cold does not help.

“‘M Dying,” Babe wheezes. It almost feels true. Maybe it is. He’s glad for his phone to still be working, for Eugene to be here at the very least. All he can think is how awful it would be if he was alone. He’d probably fall back into unconsciousness, and maybe he’d wake up later, okay and safe, even if he was still in the car. Or maybe he wouldn’t. All the thinking just makes his head throb more - he didn’t think he had it in himself.

“You’re not,” Gene says, and it’s sharp if not shaky. “No, you’re not.” It sounds like hope. It sounds like last second determination, willed out of practiced confidence in the face of time, even if it wasn’t giving you nearly enough. It sounds like love.

There is a dark red stain on the airbag from the steering wheel. It’s also on the frame of the car near the door where is arm is stuck, where his head once rested. It’s also staining his clothes, and dripping from his head down onto his seat, and it is messy, and Babe mourns the mess and the amount of time it’ll take to clean it all up. _You’ll help me clean it up, won’t you?_ He thinks, blinking at the cracked white face of his phone, so distant and impossibly far away. He almost voices it, but his throat is clogged and dry and the words never make it out. Gene would. He’s genuine and sweet like that.

_Tell me a story,_ Babe thinks. (And he’ll never know if he actually said it - but Eugene tells him one anyway.)

“Remember when we first met?” he says. Babe just lets out an encouraging hum, feels the rumble and stays content with being alive. “And it was one of those bad nights where it was just some drunk asshole who got into too big a bar fight and got glass in his hands for it? And Joe Toye took all the blame for it, because he really had socked ‘m good, even though your knuckles had bruisin’ too?”

And Eugene laughs, and it’s a lovely, broken little thing that makes Babe smile despite it, eyes fluttering gently closed. “And when you saw I noticed, you just said -”

  
  


_(I’m not usually a fighter, I swear.)_

  
  


And he laughs too, even if it is a little short and winded. And Gene just continues, easy as ever, even if the blaring noise is starting to come through Babe’s end a little more, too loudly as blue and red lights glitter across the dark snow outside, a glaring warning he all but misses. “And all I could say was ‘I sure as hell hope not,’ as we got him on the stretcher, and we were already outta there before I even got to ask your name.”

“Think ‘s when I fell in love,” Babe slurs honestly, even if he has to choke out a few coughs afterwards.

And Gene doesn’t say anything, but there are shouts of _There!_ and _We’re coming!_ Around him, and more lights, and they’re glaring so much that he has to squeeze his eyes shut even more, because he’s so, so tired and his headache is just getting more awful by the second and there’s a tree branch impaled in his chest, and somehow, despite being at the top of his list of worries he ignores it for the fact of just being _tired._

_M’Gonna sleep,_ he thinks drowsily, an unheard explanation as his head slowly slumps back down to rest on the frame of the car. And it’s dark, it is, it’s dark despite all the lights, despite all the sounds. There’s more shouting, of _Fucking - Jesus it’s a goddamn slope be_ **_careful_** _-_ and Babe isn’t sure if that means inherently anything good.

“I love you too,” Eugene breathes, and it’s so quiet he barely hears it over the shouting and the sirens.

And he just puffs a breath in relief because - that’s good. That’s good, that’s out of the way. And now he can _really_ sleep because there’s the fact that at least something went right from this mess of wrong, these disasters that keep happening that would never really work without a little Heffron charm. He isn’t sure how much of it really applies, in this case, but; he’s kind of losing his grip on reality anyway.

“We’re gonna sort this out, ok? After,” and his voice is far too wobbly.

“‘Kay,” Babe yawns, more and more encouraged by the gentle arms of sleep. Eugene is saying something else, but the words blur together and are too fuzzy to understand anyway.

  
  


And he feels like he’s earned this, really, just for existing so long. Babe’s never gotten anything more than scraped knees and bruises. This is at least several steps up from any of that, he can interpret that at least. He begins to gently drift in and out of consciousness, because one minute he is alone and it is just him and Eugene alone in the car, and the next there is a man trying to pry the bent driver’s door open, and his face is dark in the night but it is illuminated by the blue and red lights, and the reflected white of the snow. He isn’t really sure if he’s familiar or not, or if he’s even real, for the matter. Babe just blinks, slowly, and thinks _w_ _hat’s going to happen to my arm when the door is open,_ and his thoughts just spiral and twist from there, a train with no tracks.

And then his eyes drift closed, again, and it only feels like a few seconds, because he swears he can still hear the creaking resistance of the driver door when he opens them, but this time he is not in the car, and he’s looking up at the stars in between the gaps of the snow clouds. His back is on something plastic, and it’s rough and kind of hurts, but when he looks down past his feet there is a dangerously steep slope of snow beneath them, and he thinks _oh, I’m on a sled,_ and wonders if whoever’s dragging him will let go, and then he’ll end up on the craziest sled ride of his life, and maybe he’d die. The idea only makes him queasy and bile to rise in his throat, so he opts to look away and back up at the stars.

And that’s - that’s one of the many things Babe isn’t good at, is constellations. He can’t name you any basic ones besides the Big Dipper, though he can never track down the Little Dipper after it, and supposedly the North star is supposed to be somewhere around or between them. That’s something Julian is good at - kid has rattled to him for ages all the different signs, and constellations, and dates and different types of telescopes, he could probably recite the basic form of every ramble by heart. So when he looks up, trying to make different shapes, and he ends up seeing a funky stick figure out of the stars (Which, if he’d known any better, was just Orion) and a whale, and he chuckles, because that’s good enough, right?

“I’m not dying,” he whispers at the sky, although nothing feels real, and the words leave a trail of smoke into the sky that disappears all too fast, and it feels like a message.

  
  


He’s alive. Probably; or probably not. He’s not sure how often sleds are involved in medical whatever protocol, he barely has half the energy to stay conscious, let alone ask. They’re going slow enough to try to not jostle the tree branch impaled in his chest, which he really does appreciate despite having to hiss in pain if he moved at all, trying to hold himself impeccably still for the stars. He squeezes his eyes back shut, hoping for the blissful content that comes with not existing, just for a little while. Just a bit of shut-eye, before he opens them again and gets this shit figured out with Eugene, and then he can tell him everything.

Just a little bit. Just enough to temper the swelling pain, shove it down enough to form coherency. He’s out like a light.

  
  
  
  
  


(He’s on a stretcher in the fire department’s ambulance, half dead, barely alive before he even knows it. And his phone is still in his car, and the screen stays a bright white in the dark for another hour, before finally the battery dies and it is left in silence.)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I sincerely hope you enjoyed reading this.
> 
> As to Babe's injuries, he had a concussion, broken ribs and a punctured lung. There is a good chance broken ribs can puncture your lung, but when it comes to chest impaling there are much stronger changes to the lung being punctured (obviously.) I did as much research as I could into the symptoms and side effects of these, and I'll list them below for further information (because learning is always fun, and I well encourage it.) I may have dialed it up a little bit in terms of writing, but I tried to keep it as accurate as possible. Sorry for anything that is not accurate.
> 
> Punctured Lung symptoms:  
> \- chest pain when coughing/taking a deep breath  
> \- shortness of breath  
> \- abnormal breathing  
> \- rapid heart rate (working harder on 1 lung)  
> \- pale/blue skin due to lack of oxygen  
> \- fatigue
> 
> Fractured Ribs symptoms:  
> \- pain when breathing, coughing moving  
> \- possible bruising  
> \- swelling
> 
> Concussion symptoms:  
> \- headache or pressure in head  
> \- loss of consciousness  
> \- confusion, fogginess  
> \- dizziness, general disorientation  
> \- nausea  
> \- possible/likely amnesia surrounding traumatic event (temporary or long-term)  
> \- ringing in ears
> 
> Note: Now while in this Eugene is a trained paramedic and can likely very easily spot symptoms, this is something happening over the phone and to someone he is very close to. This is also why it's likely he wouldn't be sent out to get Babe - there are a lot of risks when it comes to operating on someone you know, and if your higher-ups/coworkers/anyone knows that there's a reasonable chance they'll hold you back. While this isn't to say people haven't operated on people they knew, I'd like to say it also isn't something all that common. Also, there isn't that great of a chance a sled would be used - but for the purpose that this is a very snowy, very steep tree-filled slope while a medical emergency is occurring where you're trying to not jostle Anything that could be wrong in Babe as you climb back up, a sled makes fairly useful than the possibility of wheeling down a stretcher. Also - Emergency services would arrive DAMN fast, and let's assume they did in this case, too. 
> 
> and now, for the biggest note: I am not a doctor. I have no actual idea, I've only spent an incredible amount of time digging for handfuls of research to fit what I wanted to happen in the story, and I do not know if all of it is accurate. Feel free to correct anything.


End file.
